


Subhagātanaya

by avani



Category: Mahabharata - Vyasa
Genre: Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, Not Good Not Nice Just Right (Or Ruthless)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23134888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/pseuds/avani
Summary: Kunti is not an easy person to love. No one knows this better than her sons.
Relationships: Kunti & The Pandavas
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42
Collections: Rangabhumi Round Two: An Indian Mythology and Lore Fanfic Exchange





	Subhagātanaya

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dulce_periculum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dulce_periculum/gifts).



The world knows Yudhisthira as obedient, and they forget it was his mother who molded him so. Not by bribes, or berating, and certainly nothing as unrefined as a beating, and he is sorry for it. Bribes he would have honorably refused, berating ignored, and a beating suffered with all the relish of martyrdom; but Mother offers up only a blunt declaration of what is to come, and against which none of Yudhisthira’s reason or logic has any strength. It is, he thinks sullenly, rather like trying to argue with a river in the midst of flooding. 

“We will return to your father’s family,” Mother decides, when it is on the tip of Yudhisthira’s tongue to suggest that they go to Kuntibhoja instead, or somewhere they might at least be welcome. 

“This Dronacharya will be your instructor, just as your grandsire wishes” she says, before Yudhisthira can list the many, many reasons not to trust a stranger who watches them with calculation in his eyes.

“We’ll search the riverbank once more, in case Bhima has found his way home,” she commands, and Yudhisthira does not have the heart to remind her of the diminishing likelihood of a drowned boy returning alive. 

But despite all those reasons for anger, it all comes down to this: Yudhisthira sitting, head in his hands, in the midst of a palace meant to be a pyre, Uncle’s letter—read and reread a thousand times— beside him. The tunnel is complete; a family of decoys laid out in the feasting hall below; and his heart is so heavy with guilt, it weighs down his limbs.

Mother comes to him, then, and lays an icy hand on his shoulder. “We will survive,” she says, “whatever we must sacrifice for it.” This, then, is her gift to him: to take the responsibility upon herself, to let him reassure himself that he is nothing more than obedient to her wishes.

Yudhisthira is grateful beyond words.

*

Unlike the younger three, Bhima remembers a time when Mother was not all they had. He remembers afternoons spent listening to Father’s laugh, and that Mother Madri would always let him hide behind her skirts when Mother stalked through the cottage in search of him. “It wasn’t my fault,” he would confide in Mother Madri later, “how was I to know she’d saved all that jaggery to serve to the visiting  _ rishis _ for later?”

He shames himself, truth be told, as he watches Mother Madri’s face disappear beneath the crackling flames and wonders what if,  _ what if— _

A terrible thing, to wish to replace one mother with another. That secret Bhima will carry to his own deathbed. So he does not complain when he must carry Mother and all his brothers upon his back, or fight a demon in their defense. It is only what he merits. Even when Mother —and there really is no other way to describe it—trades him away to Hidimbii for safe passage, he holds his tongue. He cannot be angry at her, when he is already angry at himself; besides, what use a middle son?

But Mother’s voice is warm when she greets him in Ekachakrapur, her face relieved, and the half-portion of rice she sets aside for him sweet on his tongue. He thinks—he  _ knows _ —he has misjudged her.

(She sends him out to kill another demon to repay their hosts within the month. He tells himself he doesn’t mind.)

*

Arjuna waits until moonrise, until the others are all asleep, before he slips from his blankets and goes to join Mother outside. She waits for him, face tranquil, hands folded in her lap, and already he feels a tongue-tied fool.

He wishes Keshav were here. Keshav would know what to say.

“You knew,” Arjuna accuses instead, as clumsy as a goat-kid that only knows how to bleat. “How many times have you heard our footsteps, how many times have you guessed how many of us were there based only by them? How much more difficult would it be to pick out a princess’s anklets from among them? You  _ knew _ .”

“I did,” says Mother, and that is all: she offers neither explanation nor apology.

“I won her,” he blusters, “my hand drew the bow; you had no right when I—“

“And if,” Mother replies calmly, “you think of her in that manner, you certainly don’t deserve her hand at all. It is for Panchali to protest; and she, I remind you, has very much not.”

This is the sort of pronouncement Keshav always makes that causes one to feel hopelessly adolescent, so much so that one forgot the very gist of the conversation to begin with. It is a pity, Arjuna thinks crossly, that Mother doesn’t have him as a son instead; the two of them rather deserve each other. He says as much to her, and she laughs.

“But he hasn’t need of me, my dear; he is more than clever enough on his own. You and your brothers, on the other hand—“ her eyes gleam, even in the darkness, “—you very much do.”

*

Only later does Nakula think to tell his mother of the misadventure of the  _ yaksha _ ’s lake—or at least what little he remembers of it. He did not intend to, but his forehead had been furrowed, or so Mother said, and certainly that would lead to unsightly wrinkles were his concerns not shared.

“Of all his brothers, he chose me to live again,” Nakula says, voice flat, “because if he did not, he should be doing his mother Madri an injustice.”

He does not mean to sound bitter—does he? He ought to be touched. But it is one thing to think yourself a full brother in every way that counts, and another indeed to find his eldest brother has set both twins apart in his mind, allowed them a partiality borne out of not belonging with the rest. 

Where was that fairness, he wonders, when it had come time to set the stakes for that ill-fated dice game?

But Mother is still watching, and so Nakula continues hurriedly, “It was very noble of him. You would have been very proud.”

Mother only raises her eyebrows. “Would I?”

“Well—I—It shows how well you taught him—“

“Had Yudhisthira come before me,” Mother says mercilessly, “with only you at his side, I would have said no more than this: that whether it took fourteen more years or forty, he was not to leave the forest without having reclaimed  _ all _ my sons.”

Nakula’s chest loosens; he can breathe more easily. Difficult as it may be to hear, Mother always knows what to say: they are all equal in her heart, and in her love. Even his life alone would not have satisfied her sense of justice. He is more than a half-hearted apology offered up to a woman he hardly knew. 

“He did just so,” Nakula allows, happy enough to be generous. “He won us all back from Death, in the end.”

Mother bares her teeth in a smile. “Of course he did,” she says. “As you said, I’ve taught him well.”

*

The sound of the curse has faded, but its aftershocks linger in the air. Yudhisthira storms away, followed by most of his brothers, but Mother remains—as does her youngest son.

She is crying, Sahadeva notices. Never before had her face grown so still and ashen, not in all the years he has known her.

“There was no other choice,” she whispers. “If there had been, I would have found it.”

A lie, Sahadeva knows, but she is allowed some in so long a life. He murmurs something indistinct and comforting.

“My life I devoted to protecting you brothers.” Her eyes, red-rimmed, are wide as a child’s. For an instant he can see the girl she must have been when she gave away  _ suta _ -born Kar— his eldest brother. “Was that not enough for Yudhisthira? Must he lay claim to all my secrets as well?”

Sahadeva knows something about knowledge that could never be shared, no matter how much good it would do. He knows the way it drags at the soul. He knows that if Yudhisthira would carry on so for Mother’s one revelation, he would never forgive Sahadeva for what he knew and never told the rest of them.

If he could, he would make an exception for Mother. But it can’t be so, can never be so, and instead he puts his arms around her so that her head rests upon his shoulder.

“My boy,” Mother whispers, “my own boy,” and Sahadeva looks over at the corpse of a man who never heard those words from her in life and does not shudder.

*

Karna makes no secret of his partiality for the widowed dowager of Hastinapur, much as Duryodhana might rail against crones who refuse to stay in the wilds where they can cause no trouble. She, unlike her sons, has never paid him any insult, or any notice at all beside the occasional smile or soft compliment in passing. Besides, he admires her determination--as much trouble as it might create for his friend, she knows how to fight for what she wants. That is a trait Karna particularly admires, as a fellow firebrand himself. 

"Imagine if we were to take the widow queen--" Duryodhana begins anew, and Karna waves the suggestion away with an urgency he cannot explain. 

"Set your sights higher than such low-hanging fruit," he says, and holds his breath until his friend turns away, his attention diverted. Karna knows not why it matters, only that it does. Queen Kunti must remain safe, even as jackals gnaw her sons' bones around her; Karna will spend his last breath making sure of that. 

(He will learn to hate her on a riverbank in blazing sunlight, but by then, it will be far too late.)

**Author's Note:**

> *subhagātanaya- (Sanskrit) son of an honored mother.


End file.
